Green Star

Green Star is a membership-driven organization aiming at building sustainable buildings and certifying these. Developed in Australia, there are analogous organizations in New Zealand and in South Africa.

Motivation for having Green Star certification of a building is to achieve higher value of a building in balance, or better sales or better rental price with sustainability as additional argument, or to promote public perception of the company operating a Green Star certified building, or to promote environment and health. Procedure is to collect points for proper consideration of environmental aspects (e.g. saving of energy and of resources, recyclability, indoor air quality and more).

Different than other associations for sustainable buildings, most of the criteria documents for assigning sustainability points are not public for free, they must be purchased for a significant price, or you must become member of the respective Green Building Council for a significant fee.

Products and VOC and formaldehyde

Products cannot be certified, but use of compliant products can help building projects to collect additional points for a higher sustainability rating.

The requirements for products regarding formaldehyde and VOC are assumed to be the same in all three countries. The documentation is in a technical manual that is available for a fee. The requirements deal with:

There was a debate within Green Star Australia that European test methods and low VOC programs should be accepted in the most recent version, besides US test methods, but we did not yet receive any clear information about that. Green Star New Zealand accepts AgBB and GUT compliance for floorings, and Green Star South Africa accepts some European labels.

Eurofins VOC related services

Eurofins offers documentation of compliance with the specifications on emissions of VOC and aldehydes by independent and ISO 17025 accredited testing, and if relevant also with external surveillance (inspections, re-testing), and certification, e.g. in combination with the Eurofins operated certification programme Indoor Air Comfort - certified products.

Certification and testing services for Ü mark, CE mark and the Eurofins certification program Indoor Air Comfort - certified products can be ordered in parallel for use on different market segments - there will be significant costs saving when compared to ordering these services separately.

After the abolition of the U-mark for CE labeled construction product in Germany, DIBt provided new German requirements called ABG within the administrative regulation MVV TB) on low emitting construction products.